But the AUD has managed to rebound in Asian trade, in the absence of an immediate backlash by Chinese authorities.

It initially fell back below 0.7150 US cents after reaching an overnight high of 0.7195, but a short time ago had rallied back above US72 cents.

Here’s the price action on a five-minute chart:

Investing.com

Immediately following the trade announcement, the AUD was the worst performer among the commodity bloc, with smaller falls for the Canadian loonie and the Kiwi dollar.

Elsewhere, moves were relatively muted, as the US dollar has made up some ground against the other major currencies, but not enough to offset its overnight falls.

Trump’s tariffs are scheduled to go into effect from September 24, starting at a rate of 10% before increasing to 25% by the end of the year.

Earlier this morning, Reuters reported that China’s vice premier Liu had commissioned a meeting to discuss a response.

However, the general overtones out of China have so far been relatively conciliatory in nature.

Policymakers have stated that trade protectionism will hurt both the US and Chinese economies, and cooperation will be the preferred outcome.

Reuters reported that the vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), Fang Xinghai, was hopeful the two sides could still sit down for further negotiations.

Fang also forecast that the negative effect on China’s GDP would be around -0.7%, in the event Trump pursued tariffs on another $US267 billion of goods in addition to today’s announcement.

Chinese stocks traded flat into the lunchbreak, but picked up steam since markets reopened at 3pm AEST. A short time ago, the benchmark Shangahi Composite index was ripping higher into the close, with a daily gain of more than 1.6%.